John Denver

As John Denver, the former John Henry Deutschendorf was a ubiquitous icon of the 1970s. Although he had been a musician and songwriter in the 1960s, penning "Leaving on a Jet Plane" for Peter, Paul & Mary, Denver hit his stride in the '70s with earnest folk songs celebrating the glories of the natural world and life's simple pleasures. Although he was sometimes savaged by critics for his overarching earnestness, his songs speak for themselves, and his records still sell in large numbers. In the wake of his premature death in a 1997 plane crash, a number of contemporary artists have recorded Denver's songs, without any hint of irony.

• pop
• country
• 1970s
• 2000s